Everything You Need To Know About Medical Office Construction

Updated On 3 June 2023.

Medical office construction is not like any other ordinary construction.

It has to be done in a particular manner so that your medical office’s functional activities are provided. With the right space, a good architect, and an experienced builder, building a medical office will not be that difficult. But still, you need to take care of so many issues before and after commencing your medical office construction project.

Let’s discover the ins and outs of medical office construction, its unique requirements, and expert tips on how to build successful medical offices.

What is Medical Office Construction?

Medical office construction is the process of developing medical office properties. Medical office buildings (MOBs) are office facilities housing examination rooms, dental clinics, pharmacies, and patient waiting areas that are designed and constructed for healthcare professionals to provide outpatient services and care.

Depending on the location, they are situated either near or on hospital campuses. On-campus medical offices are found within or adjacent to a hospital’s campus while off-campus MOBs are located further from the hospitals, generally in suburban or residential areas. The latter type is also referred to as ‘ambulatory care’ facilities that offer people convenient access to healthcare services.

Medical offices are owned by hospitals, private investors, and developers and are usually sized between 5,000 to 10,000 square feet. Investors who lease out MOBs to hospitals generate rental incomes under long-term leases. Though essentially a medical outpatient facility, a medical office building is recognized as a ‘business-use’ structure by the International Building Code.

The medical office space market in San Francisco, California comprises a total of 11,133, 850 square footage, witnessing a growth rate of 15.71% since last decade as reported by 42 Floors.

Types of Medical Office Buildings

MOBs are diverse in nature and encompass almost all hospital services for the diagnosis and treatment of patients. The most prominent examples of medical office buildings are as follows:

• Urgent Care Center
• Primary Clinics
• Pharmacies
• Laboratory Facilities
• Community Health Center
• Specialty Clinics (ex. Cardiology Clinic, Orthopaedic Clinic, Dermatology Clinic, Optometry Clinic, etc.)
• Dental Office
• Rehabilitation Center
• Imaging Center
• Ambulatory Surgical Center and Other Emergency Facilities
• Physical Therapy Clinic
• Women’s Health Center

6 Unique Requirements of Medical Office Construction

Construction of medical office buildings is much more complicated than standard office buildings as they have unique location, safety, and privacy requirements. The commercial contractor you will be partnering with should take into account these six mandatory requirements:

1. Accessible Location

Ease of access for your patients will be highly dependent upon the selected location for the medical office building. Ask yourself the below-mentioned questions before finalizing the site location:

• Is this area easily accessible for the elderly and disabled people?
• Does the location allow for ample parking?
• What are the present demographics of this area?
• How rapidly is the community growing?
• What is the percentage of young families, single adults, and older retirees?
• What are the healthcare spending patterns in this community?
• Is this site close to public transportation?
• Are there nearby retail centers or amenities that drive traffic to this area?

Ideally, medical office buildings should be located in densely populated areas where patients are a maximum of 30 minutes drive away from them. This will also help in attracting consistent traffic to the commercial facility.

2. Building Codes and Regulations

If you are billing for services to Medicare or Medicaid, then your building must comply with the Guidelines for Design and Construction of Outpatient Facilities laid out by the Facility Guidelines Institute (FGI). From plumbing fixture requirements and specialized HVAC systems to minimum room size and safety standards, they include all the essential building regulations for commercial builders.

Compliance with ADA accessibility requirements can be fulfilled by constructing ramps, bathrooms, corridors, and elevators to meet the needs of the disabled and patients who are in ambulatory care.

3. Patient-Oriented Technology

Pos-pandemic, digitally integrated spaces have become the present and future of healthcare delivery. Modern diagnostic and treatment technologies such as vital sign monitors, practice management software, electronic health record (EHR) systems, client documentation software, etc. are now essentials of tech-centric offices. Such AI and cloud software are effective in giving personalized patient experiences. Additionally, using in-time scheduling and electronic kiosks is a great way to reduce patients’ wait times and congestion.

4. Material Finishes

Sterilized materials are a compulsory solution for ensuring hygiene and infectious disease control in hospital environments. Your commercial contractor must refer to the FDI guidelines for the permitted list of materials. Besides, depending on the medical services catered to the patients, the developers can apply stricter material finishes to the medical office building.

Building materials are also an influential factor in attracting tenants, hence, premium finishes, better lighting, energy-efficient HVAC, and other advanced features will help in getting high-paying tenants. For example, if a MOB is providing specialized surgery operations, then the space needs high-end or luxury finishing.

5. Acoustics Control

Any medical facility complying with the FDI standards is obliged to follow the acoustic requirements of Sound Transmission Coefficient (STC) and Outdoor-Indoor Transmission Class (OITC).

Medical office construction and design teams should focus on maintaining privacy, for example, implementing higher STC for a common wall between the patient examination room and waiting area. Privacy is also crucial in medical settings to keep doctor-patient confidentiality under HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act).

Similarly, the building envelope of a medical office must regulate the sound transmission rate between its interiors and exteriors. Make sure your general contracting company performs ambient sound monitoring and brings appropriate noise levels to the structure.

6. Design for Operations and Programming

A medical office building’s design should accommodate the necessities, goals, and desires of its end users. The operational model of a space plays a vital role in determining its design considerations. From the patient lifecycle (inquiry desk, waiting lobbies, exam rooms and billing counters) to the staff workflows (trash collection, cleaning, maintenance) the building design significantly impacts the way a medical practice runs.

Proper and visible signage should be put up to avoid any navigational confusion for visitors. Considering the patterns of pedestrians and emergency vehicles like ambulances, parking lots should be located for easy access.

8 Medical Office Construction Tips

Here are some of the most important tips that will help you build and use the ideal dental or medical office for your medical practice:

Tip No. 1 – Be Aware Of Your Limits When Undertaking Your Medical Office Construction:

As a medical practitioner, you will be well-versed in medical matters. But you may not be aware of all the issues that are connected with building a medical office. You must recognize this and take all possible steps to involve the right type of person to help you in medical office construction.

Your years of study in school or your college education are in a different field. You may not have enough knowledge in supervising and managing the project for building a medical office. It would help if you understood that you have to spend a considerable amount of time and energy to acquire the knowledge necessary to manage a big construction project while undertaking your medical office construction.

This knowledge alone may not be necessary to complete the project, and you need more experience in the construction field. You should understand that building a medical office is not a DIY project and get your project going by appointing the right General contractor and the best architect who has the necessary experience in completing similar projects as yours.

Tip No. 2 -Go for Competitive Bidding

It is always necessary to go for competitive bidding while planning your medical office construction. Though this may be a time-consuming process, do not neglect this way of finding your ideal team to undertake building a medical office as per your requirements. Take your time in deciding on the set of requirements for your medical office construction.

Prepare a complete work document scope and provide them to your probable set of construction professionals and call for their bids. Make it clear that the bid for building a medical office must be submitted before a particular timeline.

Consider the bids in a detailed manner. If you need any clarifications, get them. Have a clear view of the General contractor or the Architect’s offerings and make an apple-to-apple comparison. If you cannot do this by yourself, do not hesitate to take professional help in finding the right bid for your medical office construction project.

Tip No. 3 -Ask For References & Check Them To Know About The Team You Are Going To Work With

Never trust your gut feelings only, and do not ignore the formality of asking for references from past project owners. This is the only way to know fully about a General Contractor or an Architect to know how they have completed their past projects and how they have dealt with their past project owners.

This step in building a medical office is very vital to know about the persons with whom you are going to work shortly.

Be prepared with the set of general questions to ask as well as the special questions relating to the professional skill set of a particular person. Carefully note down the replies and consider them in the right spirit so that you can get a complete picture of the person, his work ethic, his way of dealing with others, his financial management, his way of working, his skill sets, and how that is going to help your medical office construction project.

Tip No. 4 -Participate In The Medical Office Construction Planning:

Spend your time with the planning professionals who are involved in preparing the plan for building a medical office for you. Though you may not completely involve yourself in your medical office construction’s day-to-day construction activities, you have to spend considerable time with your construction team at the planning stage.

This is necessary for making clear your requirements to the construction team and confirming that all your requirements are completely included in the building plan.

So call for a meeting of your general contractor, your architect, the main subcontractors, your owner representative, and other stakeholders in the medical office construction project. Discuss with them and make sure all your requirements and special needs for the project are taken care of.

Tip No. 5 -Avoid Medical Office Construction Specialists To Save Your Money

On average, medical office buildings in the United States cost about $500 per square foot. When you are in the planning stage of building a medical office, you will be searching for the right people to make the team that is going to conduct your project. During this time, you will be advised to have construction professionals who are specialists in medical office construction.

This, they will say, will help you have the best chance of completing the project by medical office construction specialists. But when you see the cost of these so-called specialists in building a medical office, their billing will be about 20 to 50% more than other well-established construction professionals.

You need not go for these specialists. You can select well-established and experienced General contractors and architects who are generalists with the ability to convert your requirements into a well-laid outbuilding plan.

They need to have the ability to give the best shape to your building plan at the best price. So, avoid medical office construction specialists who are not going to add proportionate value to your project as to the additional amount you are required to pay them.

Please take the necessary steps to call other service providers like your medical equipment suppliers, IT service providers, etc. They can also understand your requirements and communicate their special requirements in building a medical office so that no problem arises while fixing their equipment in the building.

Tip No. 6 -Commence Your Medical Office Construction Based On a Well Drafted Construction Agreement

Always insist on a well-drafted construction agreement, and building a medical office must be commenced only after signing the agreement that contains the clauses which you understand fully. Never allow your medical office construction without the agreement, and take your time to read and understand every clause contained in the construction agreement.

A liquidated damage clause is a must-have in the construction agreement. It is the right type of protection you can have against your General contractor to ensure that the medical office construction is completed as per the agreed schedule. The clause for liquidated damage provides you with the option of getting compensation for the delay in the completion of the project.

Tip No. 7 -Do Not Restrict Yourself With Conventional Thinking

One of the major blocks in bringing innovations into the medical office construction project may be your sticking to conventional thinking and your hesitation to think out of the box. With the present-day technological and other advancements in every field of construction, you need to stick on and go with a convenient way of planning and doing the construction.

Think out of the box and search for new ideas and other ways of doing conventional things, especially when you are stuck up with problems that need solutions to proceed with your project.

Think, look and hear from around you and take all the good things that you think will add value to your medical office construction and include them in your planning, and this will help you build your medical office in the way you want.

Tip No. 8 -Be Aware Of All The Contracts & What They Mean To Your Medical Office Construction Project

Once all the planning is done and all the contracts with all your construction team are drafted, get hold of them, give a thorough reading and fully understand the scope of the contracts. If you need any clarification or you find that some clauses lack clarity go redrafting them till they can carry the meaning you want to be carried in the way you want.

Please do this for each of the contracts and discuss with them and clarify all the grey areas to make them the basis for your medical office construction so that once the project is started, it proceeds as per the terms of the contracts and completes the way you want.

Conclusion

Take extra caution whenever you are undertaking your medical office construction project and try to know all the minute details about its conduction. You can save a significant amount of budget by selecting well-experienced generalists instead of going ahead with specialists. Participate in the planning process, select the construction team based on competitive bidding, and select them after checking the references. Think out of the box, try to find innovative solutions to your problems, and start your project only after getting all the contracts drafted and understanding them well.

These are only some of the most important tips you can follow while doing your medical office construction. Always trust your gut instinct and be clear about what you want while building a medical office for you.

If you are looking for a reliable commercial general contractor to undertake your project, you can surely contact us to get our quote for your project.

FAQs

What are the other legal requirements for Medical Office Construction?

Some of the legal requirements for medical office construction in the United States are:

• Procedures related to the Certificate of Need (CON)
• National Fire Protection Association (NFPA)
• Health Care Facilities Code (HCFC)
• Life Safety Code (LSC)
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
• Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations
• Licensing, environmental, and medical equipment compliance

How do I ensure amenities for employees and patients while constructing a medical office?

Conduct a deep assessment of the preferences of both employees and patients. Incorporate their feedback into the building design and ensure all the constructed amenities adhere to legal regulations and standards.

What to look for in a general contractor before hiring them for my Medical Office Building Construction?

A general contractor for medical office construction must be –

• Experienced in healthcare facility projects
• Knowledgeable about strict medical regulations
• Have positive client reviews, testimonials, and a proven track record
• Be licensed and insured
• Communicate clearly

Relevant Resources:

What Does A Commercial General Contractor Do?

How Your Commercial General Contractor Can Help Reduce Costs